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Continuation of discussion from DSL-AX82U thread. Main points below:
So my family have somehow been able to get along ok in a 3 story house with something as simple as a Billion 8800NL (in the center of the whole property). Sure it had complete dead spots at the far corners and outside reception was just not a thing but it worked. However, the wireless on it just simply died recently. It would not broadcast an SSID anymore. I managed to get a replacement 8800NL from Ebay for £15 and that was fine. The issue is my brother got some Blink outdoor wireless cameras for the property and as you can guess, it’s having trouble to connect. Now the cameras directly screwed above the doors work good enough (1-2 bar connection) but the one we were thinking of placing approx 10 foot on an adjacent wall to look over the complete driveway is not working well if at all.
It seemed time to look at a new router or better yet, a mesh system to completely cover the house. With only having a 40/10 BT line, it doesn’t really matter the speeds of the satellite nodes. They just have to be able to extend the signal enough to allow the cameras to connect reliably. I have a gaming PC but this will always be wired into the main router. Everything else on the wireless doesn’t need super fast pings or speed.
For years I always thought that ping spikes while downloading or others using internet was just because the CPU on the router sucked. I now know after alot of research recently it’s likely bufferbloat so I thought I may aswell try and solve that problem at the same time (for the wired in gaming PC anyway). I know I needed a router with SQM features (preferably cake or fq_codel).
The options I came up with was Eero, TP-Link Deco and ofcourse ASUS. I also thought to myself that since I’m on FTTC now but FTTP is apparently coming soon, I should get one that will be directly compatible with both. How I saw the products:
Eero: This is such a mixed bag. From all my reading the 2nd gen product seems to be the best because it has cake compared to what I read is a very flawed implementation of fq_codel on the newer 6 models (something about offload engines and very technical stuff). However, as I stated above about PPPoE the 2nd gen eero with cake does not support PPPoE directly. It always has to have a modem infront. The 6 models do support PPPoE directly but then I have an SQM method that barely works and with how expensive it is, not ideal. The thing is I can’t just bridge the 2nd gen as then you lose access to SQM feature…. ahhhhh!!!!!!
TP-Link Deco: This should on paper be a pretty good solution but… something tells me it won’t be. They sell DSL versions of the products (X20-DSL and X73-DSL). The plan there is FTTC directly into the unit and then when FTTP comes, just use one of the 4 ethernet ports on the router (all 4 support PPPoE WAN). The only downside (besides being tied to a smartphone app like Eero) is they have some form of a QoS feature but it’s never going to be anywhere close to cake which is super “plug n play” on Eero. I can’t even find anyone with a Deco product willing to run bufferbloat tests for me to see if their QoS even does anything.
The other thing putting me off TP-Link is privacy issues: https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/tbthjj/psa_newer_tplink_routers_send_all_your_web/
They said they “fixed” this in firmware updates but none of those DSL units I am looking at had firmware updates.
Asus: The DSL-AX82U seems perfect as a standalone router. It will do the FTTC modem route and serve me well on the move to FTTP. The problem I see myself having is that’s only for one router. I know that all routers have to adhere to transmission power regulations or whatever so I can’t magically think that it will be better than the Billion I have for range (cameras only work on 2.4 Ghz). Since I will need merlin firmware to enable cake, my instincts tell me that I will likely have some issues if I try to add other Asus access points via AiMesh. It’s likely not been tested that much. Plus if I go the multiple Asus router route, it can get somewhat expensive. Even if I go for the non DSL modem equivalent (the TUF-AX5400) that’s still £132. 3 of them and you’re looking at basically £400. With the TP-Link and Eero I can get 3 packs all for under £300 that are unlikely to have as many firmware bugs since it’s official release stuff.
Now I know after reading all this you are likely just gonna say stuff like “just wire access points” but nobody in the house has experience with drilling or laying cables and my family already thinks it’s weird that we now will require 2 devices for internet (gonna use the 8800NL in modem bridge mode for the router/mesh system). Laying cables would just be a no no.
All gaming is basically PC now. Have a PS4 (which is next to the main router anyway) but since I moved to 1440p and high framerate monitor I’m not going back. I play Overwatch 2 mostly and as you can imagine if ping spikes happens then it can be annoying in such fast paced action.
We have 1 iPhone Pro (not sure of model it’s afew years old), 2 Android phones and some tablets (2 iPad and 2 Amazon Fire tablets).
Fortunately the BT master socket is almost directly in the middle so placing the main router in the exact middle is easy. I can’t see the GT-AC5300 in stock at Amazon and tbh I think I should atleast get a Wi fi 6 capable router if it’s only going to be one unit (plus if wifi 6 devices enter later). Do you think the GT-AX6000 is a good choice? I don’t think I can persuade us to fork out £450+ on that one AXE16000 unit but the AX6000 is somewhat reasonable. It’s still alot to fork out if range is still bad but the Eero/TP-Link is always going to be sub £300 for 3 units.
As for FTTP speeds, unless BT ever has an insane deal on I’ll never be going for more than 500 and even that is pretty overkill for our needs. I’ll likely just be on the 150 package as I can get that for £27.99 a month.
If any more info needed let me know.
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Maybe an Overwatch server in UK, maybe minor server and unsure if PC or Console suitable ?
Note: We found this with Fifa, even though when we first started, no UK servers was listed, there is a server just below London that if you selected worked well and have you sub 10ms ping ?
Where as if Geo-filter is disabled, always connected to either France, Germany and even on some occasions the US for fifa games
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Yes I think this is a good choice. Are you currently on DSL-AX82U? What does the waveform test score if you enable cake?
Alas, DSL-AX82U was unplugged yesterday and does not have @GNUton firmware loaded, only stock firmware.
If I get a chance during the week, I will load @GNUton and plug back in DSL-AX82U and see what results I achieve
Would be interesting to see what your current Billion router results are ?
In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom (J.G.Ballard).
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‘B’ not to bad considering the age of the Billion, will give the DSL-AX82U with @GNUton fork a try this week if I get a chance
In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom (J.G.Ballard).
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Hi, I myself bought a RT-AX86U and a draytek modem when on FTTC, when i switched to FTTP, I simply removed the Draytek modem and plugged the cable in from the FTTP ONT box which they put inside your house. I then sold the Draytek modem as no longer needed.
When BT installed FTTP, they only test with there router so I plugged in the BT router for testing purposes, then when they left, I removed it and connected to the ASUS router and all was fine.
Might be a option worth considering too rather than buying a DSL router and then buying a non-DSL router?
Kev
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So flashed my DSL-AX82U with @GNUton firmware release DSL-AX82U_386.08_0-gnuton1 and configured DSL-AX82U to run Cake QoS for testing bufferbloat as per below image (WAN Port not DSL).
Using the waveform tool, tests was mainly ‘A+’ but occasionally did drift towards ‘A’ and I also used DSLReports (my preferred option for this type of testing) and again test results was ‘A+’
Did the test first thing this morning when house was quite and tested by wifi (5GHz) as could not be bothered to disconnect my Xbox as this could wake up family etc.
Hope this helps ?
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BUFFERBLOAT GRADE – A
LATENCY
Unloaded – 15 ms
Download Active – +7 ms
Upload Active – +1 ms
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